Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

R2Kt & The Death of God Movement and It’s Cultural Impact

I’ve stumbled across something that I’m sure that many many other people have seen before. I’ve always been kind of slow on the uptake. That something that I’ve stumbled across is a commonality that exists between and among disciplines that have been thought to have been quite varied. What I’ve discovered is that disciplines like Keynesianism (economics), Deconstructionism (literary theory), Marxism (political theory), Legal Positivism (legal theory), Nihilism and existentialism (philosophy), historicism (historiography theory) neo-orthodoxy (theological theory) and Code Pink (sexual theory) all derive from a common theological assumption and that assumption is that “God, or the objective, is Dead.” Of course this makes perfect sense because it serves, once again, to reveal that theology (in this case the theology of anti-theology) is the fount out of which springs an integrated fount of academic disciplines.

Humanism is the positive side of the negative I am getting at. In other words, all the disciplines I’ve mentioned are, positiviely speaking the embrace of Humanism. However, when view negatively they all share the common thread of insisting that any notion of an objective, including an objective God is dead. Let us consider this to see if we can see the clear “death of the objective” strand that links all of these disciplines together.

In economics, Keynesianism desires the death of any objective standard for money and desires only that a subjective governmental standard be used in order to set the value of money. This is done so that money by fiat can be pursued. This explains why Keynesians hate the idea of a gold or silver standard. Keynesians despise the notion of the objective and so in order to set the government or the money interest up as god they seek to forever get rid of the objectively objective. In economics you have the death of the objectively objective.

In literary theory, Deconstructionism posits the death of the objective author. With the death of the objective the Deconstructionists end up positing the subjective reader as the sovereign. In Deconstructionism it is the subjective reader who determines the meaning of the text. When Deconstructionism is given its head all of life becomes a author-less text and the sovereign subjective interpreter shapes and creates their own meaning out of whatever text they encounter. In literary theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In political theory, Marxism is materialistic and so posits the death of an objective God finding its objective instead in the subjective movement of the Hegelian Absolute spirit. For the Marxist economics is the foundation and talk about religion, mind, and values are merely the superstructure that is built upon the foundation in order to justify the foundation in a ex post facto manner. For the Marxist there is no external objective reality to which subjective reality must answer to. For the Marxist the subjective is all there is and the best that can happen is that the subjective can be enlarged (blown up like a balloon) to become the objective. This is done by making the State the subjective objective by which all the rest of the subjective is measured. In political theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In legal theory, Legal positivism denies transcendent meaning insisting that meaning can only be that which can be proven subjectively. (All statements must be verifiable except for the statement that all statements must be verifiable.) Legal positivism assumes the death of the objective and then insists that anybody who disagrees with their ontology must prove the objectively objective by means of their subjective standard as it exist in their subjectively objective worldview. An impossibility from the word go. The result of legal positivism is that God and the objectively objective are ruled out of bounds clearing the field for their legal theory. In legal theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In philosophy, the existence of both Nihilism and Existentialism (the informing streams of post-modern consciousnesses) is posited upon the truth that there is no objectively objective truth. Nihilism denies their is any meaning except for the meaning that there is no meaning. Existentialism declares that existence precedes essence so that existence has no concern about objectively objective essence or meaning since subjective existence determines meaning. In both of these philosophies all that exists is the sovereign subjective individual using his will to power to turn his subjective will into the objective standard by which all things will be measured. In philosophy you have the death of the objectively objective.

In educational theory, the standard for meaning comes from within each child. Whether one is talking Freud, Dewey, or Rogers, educational theory has lost the objectively objective and the results are programs such as value neutral education where the sovereign subjective student is encouraged to discover his own values. Now, clearly value neutral education is not neutral but since the sovereign subjective student is putatively discovering and navigating his own value system what we we see once again is the clear demonstration of the death of the objective objective. God is dead. The objective is dead. All that is left is the subjective enlarging his or her subjectivity in order to turn the subjective into the a subjective objective. In educational theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

In historiography theory, historicism insists that there is no God or objective by which the meaning of History can be determined or known. As such the only thing that is left is for subjective History itself to become the objective by which it is itself measured. In Historicism God is dead and man becomes the infallible interpreter of all reality. Naturally the problem here is that historiography is only as good as the objective standard of the historian who is, by his subjective will, forcing history to do his bidding. If the historian who is doing the history is Humanist or Muslim, or Hindu, then his produced historiography will be respectively Humanist, Muslim or Hindu. The idea of the objectively objective is lost and historiography becomes awash in a sea of subjectivism. In historiography you have the death of the objectively objective.

In sexual theory such as militant homosexuality and Feminism, and all other sexual perversions what you have once again is the positing of the death of God and the death of the objectively objective clearing the field for the pervert interest to insist that perversions aren’t really perversions since w/o a God there can be no such thing as perversion. Without God or the objectively objective and with the introduction of polytheistic pagan gods who are but “man said loudly” what happens is that perversion is subjectively re-defined and sexual polymorphy becomes the norm. In sexual theory you have the death of the objectively objective and the death of God.

In theological theory, Neo-orthodoxy posits the Transcendence of God (His objectiveness if you please) but in neo-orthodoxy God becomes so objective that He has no contact with the subjective. As such, God dies of incurable hyper-transcendencism, and the subjective once again becomes objective. Since God is beyond the creature the subjective creature is left to take his subjective intuitions and enlarge them so that the subjective once again becomes objective. I once had a conversation with a Dean of a theological Seminary (this conversation is on Iron Ink somewhere) who was neo-orthodox (though he refused to admit it for fear of his job I think) and who freely admitted that it was impossible to access the objective. If one can not access the objective then God is dead. In theological theory you have the death of the objectively objective.

Now, where R2Kt comes in is that it insists that the Spirit of God is constricted to the Church and that the Church can not and should not and must not insist that a living God, as the objectively objective reality that gives meaning to everything is not dead and as such He comes in conflict against the Spirit of Chaos that manifests itself in Keynesianism, Deconstructionism, Marxism, Legal Positivism, Historicism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Perverted Sexual Theory, Freudianism, and all other pseudo realities that exist upon the premise that God is dead. R2Kt insists that the Church must not speak of the implications of a living God to a culture that is animated by philosophies, theologies, and theories that incarnate the death of God and the objectively objective. R2Kt insists that implications of the living God are to be felt only in the Church and that the Church as the Church can not speak with the voice of the living God against those who would create a culture where because God is dead, God is mute.

Keynesianism, Deconstructionism, Marxism, Legal Positivism, Historicism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Perverted Sexual Theory, Freudianism, all love R2Kt to pieces, first, because a Church infected w/ the R2Kt virus has no place from which to stand to resist the God is dead movement as it makes cultural inroads. Second, the God is dead movement loves the R2Kt virus because it teaches nothing to God’s people that will serve as a prophylactic against the impact of the God is dead movement upon the culture. Because of this the R2Kt churches will churn out people who will be saints on one hand in the church but who very likely will imbibe deeply from the God is dead movement culture they are immersed in. They will have no ability to ward of the God is dead cultural movement because they will have never been taught to see the implications of the death of the objectively objective.

Social Gospel … Marxist or Christian

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/commentary/11627652/

“Should churches and individual Christians seek to help people with material problems and social needs, remedy social ills, and improve social institutions? Throughout history many congregations, Christian organizations, and individual believers have labored to do these things. Today, however, some political conservatives denounce the “social gospel” as misguided and unbiblical and counsel Christians to avoid or leave congregations that stress social justice.”

First, let us understand that the whole idea of the Social Gospel in its historical instantiation, as exemplified by men like Walter Rauschenbush and Washington Gladden, was an attempt to reinvent the Christian Gospel. The Social Gospel was often derivative of the school of higher criticism which denied the supernatural. Further it often pursued the oxymoronic course of “Christian Socialism.” This should clue us in immediately that the historical movement of the Social Gospel was thoroughly anti-Christ as seen in its attempt to syncretize Biblical Christianity w/ anti-Christian Marxian socialism.

However, having noted that it needs to be immediately be said that it is impossible for any belief system to not have a social aspect. As such the Christian gospel will always have a social side. The problem, historically speaking, is that the Social Gospel yielded the social impact of the Gospel of Marxism and not of the Gospel of Christianity.

There are those today who are reacting violently against any idea that the Gospel has a social side since they believe that the failures of earlier versions of the Social Gospel are proof positive that the Church should just delete the whole idea of its Gospel having a social side. These types would insist that the Gospel is all personal impact and no social effect.

So, if the point of the crosswalk article is that Christians need to embrace once again the “social gospel” in it’s progressive expression of the early 20th century then we would say that the crosswalk article is anathema. However, if the point of the crosswalk article is that the Gospel must have a social impact that is measured by biblical categories we could not help but agree. Unfortunately, as I read the crosswalk article, I am inclined to think that they are appealing to the former.

Crosswalk,

Television talk show host Glenn Beck urges Christians to run away as fast as they can from all churches that use “‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice'” on their websites. Rather than expressing the mission of these churches to reduce poverty and promote human rights, Beck asserts, these terms are simply “code words” for communism and Nazism. Social justice, he claims, is “a perversion of the gospel.”

Again, if we are talking about the historical “Social Gospel” movement we would have to say that Beck is correct. Keep in mind that the “Social Gospel” movement was devoted to pushing the Government to pursue its version of social justice by means of the theft and redistribution of wealth.

Second, there should be no problem in any Church as a Church seeking to raise funds, voluntarily given, to provide relief. The problem with the Social Gospel is when the Church seeks to move the Government to provide relief with monies taken involuntarily.

Crosstalk,

“Kim Moreland, a research associate for Charles Colson’s BreakPoint, argues that adherents of the social gospel believe they can “completely eradicate poverty and other types of social ills” largely by using the political process. Instead of preaching “the good news of the Gospel,” they allegedly argue that laws and government programs can create the good society.

Bret responds,

And such argumentation is the historic expression of the Social Gospel. That two professors from Grove City college would disagree w/ this assessment is indicative that Christians should quit sending their children to Grove City College.

Crosstalk writes,

In “The Shameful Social Gospel” T. A. McMahon, president of The Berean Call ministry, accuses proponents of the social gospel of assuming that Christians can best win people to their faith by alleviating the human suffering produced by poverty, disease, social injustice, and civil rights abuses. The social gospel is “a deadly disease” that reinforces “belief that salvation can be attained by doing good works” and acting morally and sacrificially. Every time Christians have undertaken practical actions to benefit humanity, McMahon contends, they have “compromised biblical faith and dishonored God” because the Bible does not command the “church to fix the problems of the world.”

Bret responds,

The Grove City professors who wrote this article need to answer the reality that the Social Gospel has always had a tendency to make “rice Christians.”

Second, I would have to agree that the Church is not commanded to fix the problems of the world. The Church is not primarily a relief agency, a government, a educational unit, a repository of the arts, a law center, or any number of other things. The Church is primarily the herald of Christ crucified, resurrected and ascended. Certainly what the Church teaches, touches on social subjects but it is the responsibility of individual Christians, having learned Christ in the Church, to extend the crown rights of King Jesus in each of these spheres and so bring the solution of Christ to the world.

That which fixes the problems of the world is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the discipling which comes in sanctification. Those who are to fix the problems of the world are individual Christians who are applying to all of life what the Church teaches from Scripture. The Church’s only role, beyond teaching, is one of correction when individual Christians posit heinous social theories (Marxism, Keynesianism, Deconstructionism, etc.) under the banner of Christ.

Crosswalk article,

“These commentators and others who censure the church’s social mission misread both history and the Bible. Certainly, some social gospel advocates have ignored evangelism and individual piety, and others have rejected Christian orthodoxy. However, many other Christians have endeavored both to save souls and help the poor and oppressed. They have often argued that these two missions are integrally related. William Wilberforce and other members of the Clapham Sect worked zealously in England in the early 1800s to abolish slavery, make work safer and better compensated, and assist the indigent. At the same time, leaders of the Second Great Awakening created numerous reform societies in America to achieve these same ends and to help other troubled groups. Many of the evangelicals who espoused social Christianity in the years between 1880 and 1920 labored to improve working conditions, management-labor relationships, and patterns of social interaction, renovate slums, reduce crime, abolish child labor, and increase racial justice. While working to win converts and plant churches around the world, thousands of Christian missionaries have also built hospitals and schools and tried to abolish slavery, end social abuses, and create more just societies.”

Bret responds,

Again, the Grove city professors seem confused in this article and part of that confusion stems from the fact that they don’t start w/ an ironclad definition of the Social Gospel. If they are applauding the work of individual Christians to relieve the poor and bring aid to the least of these who could or would ever disagree? However, historically, that has not been the definition of the “Social Gospel.” Historically the Social Gospel has meant Marxism wrapped up as Christianity. Historically the Social Gospel has meant the attempt, by the means of the policing arm of the State, to force redistribution of wealth. If this is what the Grove City college professors are advocating then they advocating Anti-Christ social policy. One must keep in mind that the Social Gospel never works because you simply can not make poor people rich by making rich people poor. All the Social Gospel can do over the long haul is make people equally miserable.

The thing we need to keep in mind here is that the Social Gospel of Biblical Christianity is in antithesis to the Social Gospel of Marxist “Christianity.” The Social Gospel of Biblical Christianity insists on the diminution of the State so that individuals are set free to themselves help the poor. In expressions of Marxist Social Gospel the pursuit of help to the poor, through forced levies of the state upon individuals, ends up hurting the poor since state sanctioned subsidies to the poor end up creating a larger pool of poor people all competing for a restricted number of dollars.

Crosswalk article,

“Second, the Bible clearly commands Christians to care for the sick, feed the hungry, protect the environment, and insure political and social justice. Quoting from Isaiah 61, Jesus summarized His earthly mission as preaching “good news to the poor,” setting prisoners free, helping the blind regain their sight, and liberating the oppressed (Lk. 4:18-19). In the parable of the sheep and goats, He declared that those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take in strangers, and visited the sick and imprisoned—”the least of these”—are assisting Him (Mt. 25:31-46).

How can God’s love truly abide in anyone, the apostle John asked, who has substantial possessions and refuses to help the needy? “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action,” he adds (I John 3:17-18). Faith without works, James declares, is dead. He exhorts us to show our faith by our acts of compassion and generosity (2:14-18).”

Bret responds,

The Grove City professors keep missing the issue. Yes, individual Christians and even the Church as the Church should look after the “least of these.” But one gets the sense throughout this article that what the Grove City boys are really angling for is the State to take up these responsibilities. If that is what they are angling for we would insist that their Marxist slips are showing. It is not the States job to rob from the “haves” to give to the “have nots” for such a policy only insures a ever burgeoning number of the “have nots,” since subsidies always create more of what is being subsidized (in this case the poor) and since taxes always destroys what is being taxed (in this case the wealthy).

When we pursue a Marxist Social Gospel we are showing our hatred for the needy.

“Crosswalk article,

The Old Testament prophets echoed these themes. Isaiah 58, for example, commands us to “loose the chains of injustice,” “set the oppressed free,” share food with the hungry, and provide shelter and clothing for the poor (vv. 6-7). The Bible mentions justice about 700 times, more than almost any other topic, testifying to God’s passion for justice in the political, social, and economic spheres.”

Bret responds,

Yes, Yes, Yes … everyone agrees with this. The question is though, how is this to be done. Is this to be done through the Marxist Social Gospel or a Evolutionary Capitalism that insures death and destruction for all except the elite party members or is this to be pursued through Biblical Capitalism or some kind of Distributism and Subsidiarity?

Also, one needs to warn here against the incipient idea that the poor are more virtuous than the wealthy just for the reason they are poor. God is not on the side of the wicked poor against the righteous wealthy. Poverty is no sign that God is on your side and wealth is no sign that God is opposed to you.

What many Marxist Social Gospelers need to realize is that many people are poor because their pagan world and life view makes and keeps them poor. What many Marxist Social Gospelers need to realize is that their Social Gospel, where people are taught that they are victims and are encouraged to be envious and where the poor have their resentiment nourished and justified, is perpetuating poverty. The Marxist Social Gospel does nothing to solve the problem of the poor but only exacerbates the problem of poverty

Crosswalk article,

“Identifying the Christian faith with a political platform, program, or party is dangerous. It can distract Christians from their primary calling—to love and serve God in all aspects of our lives and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves—and no one platform, program, or party fully expresses God’s design for earthly life. Churches should refrain from endorsing political candidates or adopting positions on most specific political issues. However, as individuals and members of parachurch groups, Christians can take political stances and lobby for legislation we believe accords with biblical principles. Moreover, we should fight to remedy social ills and end injustices.”

Bret responds,

It is this statement that makes me think that the Grove City professors are advocating a Marxist Social Gospel. A few comments,

1.) I fully agree that no one political party fully expresses God’s design for earthly life. How could that be possible given the fullness of God’s design for earthly life. However, this does not mean that there couldn’t be a political party that Christian could identify with and point to as being “Christian.” All because such a thing doesn’t exist today in these united States doesn’t mean it couldn’t exist. One only has to remember Groen Van Prinister’s and Abraham Kuyper’s “anti-revolutionary” party in the Netherlands.

2.) Churches should always speak to political issues where the Scriptures have explicitly spoken to or have spoken to by necessary deduction. As our culture drifts increasingly away from a Biblical Christian worldview the necessity of the Church to speak on more and more political issues will increase since the political realm will increasingly seek to circumvent the authority of the Church as it pertains to moral issues.

3.) Social ills will best be remedied by the Church preaching Christ and by then discipling those who turn and trust Christ. Social ills are not best remedied by a thought process that holds that if the institutions will be changed then the individuals in the institutions will be changed. Individual conversion must precede institutional change but where individual conversions multiply institutional change will be increasingly pressed. The Marxist Social Gospelers tend to have this backwards, since like all Marxist, they tend to blame societal ills on evil cultural institutions versus a Biblical Social Gospel that blames the evil cultural institutions on individual sin natures that have not been visited w/ conversion.

Crosswalk article,

“In a world filled with social ills—where 27 million people are still enslaved, one-sixth of the population is malnourished, billions suffer from disease, unemployment, illiteracy, and oppression, where war, racism, and sexism are rampant—and where billions do not know Christ, we must stop debating whether the Bible enjoins us to help meet people’s material and physical needs or to focus exclusively on their spiritual needs. Instead, as Jesus did, we must address both types of needs.”

Bret responds,

Notice in the list of the first sentence that “billions who do not know Jesus Christ” comes last. I hold that to be fairly significant. I would have listed it first.

Second, Fifty years of the great society and the war on poverty in these united States has shown us that it does little good to throw money at the relief of people’s physical needs. Money does not solve what is aberrant in the souls of men and women.

Third, we need to prioritize our giving. We need to first take care of the poor who are part of the Household of faith before we take care of the poor who are Christ haters. Concretely, this means looking after the poor in Nigeria who are fighting Muslims and the Christian poor in the Sudan who are also fighting Muslims.

Fourth, I would have dearly loved the Grove City professors to have pointed out where they find the rampant racism and sexism. I don’t see it. However, what I do see is those two categories being favorite Marxist whipping boys used to advance their egalitarian agenda.

A Plug For “College Plus”

Every year Christian parents pack off their children to College. It is a rite of passage that has become a great American tradition. One must ask though if Christian parents would send their children away to College if they realized that nearly 70% of of all formerly church-going teens will not go to church after they leave home.

Part of the reason that 70% of all formerly church-going teens will not go to church after they leave home is due to the fact that they were not trained in the way they should go when they were living at home. Another part of the reason is that those who were trained were not ready for the assault upon their faith that the college experience represents.

“By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week….

The professors and instructors surveyed are, strongly or somewhat, in favor of abortion rights (84 percent); believe homosexuality is acceptable (67 percent); and want more environmental protection “even if it raises prices or costs jobs” (88 percent). What’s more, the study found, 65 percent want the government to ensure full employment, a stance to the left of the Democratic Party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html

Seemingly the college experience includes the experience of the Christian faith being viciously attacked. Sending young Christian adults — even young Christian adults who have been decently trained — to a college environment against these kinds of odds is akin to taking green military recruits and putting them up against elite seasoned veteran soldiers in hand to hand combat.

Now combine this with the reality that the average college graduate finishes their undergraduate work $21,000.00 in debt and suddenly the incentives begin to pile up to find alternatives to the “great American tradition” of sending our covenant seed to college.

Some will object by saying that they only send their children to “Christian colleges.” First, even if Christians send their children to Christian colleges, the $21,000.00 indebtedness they will have upon graduation isn’t any less onerous all because it is “Christian debt.” Second, to be candid, I have great reason to suspect that many (not all) Christian colleges may be worse then “secular” colleges if only because the liberal indoctrination that happens in many Christian college classrooms is far more insidious because it flies under the banner of “Christian.” For example, do you really want your child taking Sociology courses under Dr. Anthony Campolo (Marxist professor of Sociology at Eastern)? For example, do you really want your child taking religion class from Dr. Kenneth Schenk (neo-orthodox Professor at Indiana Wesleyan University)? Do you really want your child taking Economic courses from someone like Ron Sider? The examples could be multiplied endlessly.

The college scene — Christian or “Secular” — is a mess right now. The reason it is a mess is because the pedagogic paradigm in the colleges, like the paradigm in our overall culture, is thoroughly imbued with humanism.

There is a way for Christians now to do a end run around the traditional college scene and that way is called “College Plus.” College Plus is a program that allows college age students via long distance learning, and at home studies, to earn an accredited college degree in far less time than the traditional 4 years and with the promise of not being burdened w/ $21,000.00 in debt. It also holds out the advantage of not putting your children in what amounts to the indoctrination and brainwashing camps that many college campuses have become.

My son Anthony is currently working as a intern w/ College Plus in Moses Lake, Washington and thus far we have been quite pleased w/ his progress. Anthony is 19 and credit wise is just short of being a Senior in college right now. We are hopeful that before the summer of 2010 is completed that Anthony will be finished with his undergraduate degree.

Now, College plus isn’t going to be as good of an education for Anthony as he might have received if he had Dr. Glen Martin, Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, or Dr. Greg Bahnsen as his personal tutor. Still, Anthony, and all College Plus students will not have their Christian faith attacked in the College Plus program and they will have the opportunity to continue to develop their Christian worldview while they are working on their College degree.

College Plus is an idea whose time has come. Christians really do need to consider no longer supporting pagan colleges with their funds and God’s covenant seed. The way to begin dismantling our humanist culture is by reintroducing the idea of quality higher education to our children again.

College Plus is a beginning step towards that goal.

Learn more about College Plus at,

http://www.collegeplus.org/

Hebrews 7-8 & Covenant Fulfillment

Hebrews 8:10 makes it abundantly clear that the Old Testament case law applies in the New and Better covenant.

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds[b] I will remember no more.”13 In that He says, “A new covenant, ” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

While it is true that 7:12 teaches the explicit change in the law,

11 Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. 13 For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar.

one must ask what exactly the explicit change is given that 8:10 clearly teaches that the OT law remains valid since it is that law which is to be written on the hearts and etched in the minds of the New Covenant people.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

I would contend that given the explicit statement that the new and better covenant includes the OT law put in minds and written in hearts the explicit change that 7:12 is referring to is the explicit change that comes with the fulfillment of the ceremonial law. Such an interpretation does justice to Hebrews since the danger that the author of Hebrews is dealing with is the danger of the Jews, to whom he is writing, going back to the Old Covenant ceremonial system. The danger in Hebrews is not the danger of the recipients of the letter applying the OT moral and case law. That is not what the book of Hebrews is about. In Hebrews the danger is that people are inching towards going back to the ceremonial shadows. And so the writer to the Hebrews tells them that the Levitical Priesthood which officiates those ceremonies and the ceremonial law is past. That is the explicit change in the law that is being spoken of. Indeed the context demands that reading in vs. 10-11.

The context of 7:10-11 is the ceremonial law and the Levitical Priesthood — not the moral or civil law as those aspects of the law will be now written on their hearts and put in their minds of those of us in the New Covenant.

Indeed, to appeal to 7:10-11 as proof that the Old Testament law is done away with actually proves to much for such a sweeping change would have to apply to the Moral law as well so that, if we were to be consistent, would have to say that the Moral law (the Ten Commandments) no longer apply. I know of no Reformed theologians who have ever suggested such a thing.

So the new and better covenant that is promised in Hebrews chapter 8 is a new and better covenant because it is the fulfillment of all that the old and worst covenant anticipated. The old covenant is set aside in the sense that when the reality comes the shadows are no longer present but in as much it is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant it brings to the fore all that the Old Covenant promised. The thing to keep in mind is that they are not two antithetical covenants but a covenant of promise and covenant of fulfillment. Try to think of the relationship between the two covenants like the relationship between a engagement promise and a wedding promise. When the wedding promise comes the engagement promise is fulfilled and set aside and only inasmuch as it is taken up into the new and better wedding promise. The two promises though distinct are clearly related and even though the former engagement promise is put off it is putt off by being incorporated into the wedding promise which it anticipated.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends II

In part I of this series I introduced you to Mr. Mark Chambers. Mark is one of those rare laymen who, being epistemologically self conscious, continues to seek to be epistemologically self conscious. Mark is one of the sharpest laymen I’ve ever met. Indeed, he is sharper then 95% of the ministerial class I know.

In part II of this series I would like to introduce you to Joshua Butcher. Joshua is 20 something, has a beautiful wife and two young sons and is finishing up his Ph.D. work in Rhetoric somewhere in the Republic of Texas. Joshua, like Mark and myself (and many others) is a presuppositionalist, a theonomist, and as this article reveals, a supralapsarian reconstructionist.

Joshua, in this article, beginning with the counsels of God in eternity, connects the dots in a sweeping overview, between God’s exhaustive decretal sovereignty, Christ’s sufficient and efficient work and our necessary obedience to the Crown rights of King Jesus.

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a better concise overview of the necessary interrelation of God’s eternal decrees with the finished work of Christ with the inevitable and irresistible obedience that the Spirit of Christ calls forth from every member of God’s tribe.

Joshua’s blog can be found at,

http://anotherreadersreview.blogspot.com/

THE END OF A THING DETERMINES ITS BEGINNING

The phrase that heads this current post seems counter-intuitive in our present age. How can something’s end determine its beginning, see as how the beginning precedes it in time? It is such temporally determined thinking that prevents us from considering how it is that God works in the world, how it is that He makes good what is evil, how it is that we must see all things now are, though they have not yet been brought to pass in history.

From all eternity, in order to glorify Himself to the uttermost, God did determine to choose unto Himself an elect people to give unto His Son, with whom the mutual agreement was made to unite this people unto the Son, in an immaculate display of God’s perfection. As God is both merciful and just, as He is both gracious and wrathful, He decided it most pleasing to choose some upon whom His love He would place and some upon whom His wrath He would place, not according to any condition foreseen in these objects, but because of His own desire to magnify Himself did the God of Heaven make unto Himself objects of mercy and objects of wrath. Here is the first decree, the last to be revealed in history–for we do not yet see all who it shall be that God has confirmed as His people, or denied as rebellious.

Given that God did choose to elect unto Himself a people to Love by His grace and mercy and a people to Hate by His justice and wrath, God did determine to apply the benefits of His Son, by the Holy Spirit’s power, upon those who He would make unto Himself in love. The righteousness, holiness, goodness, long-suffering, peacefulness, and all the other communicable attributes of God He did decree to apply to the elect in Christ according to His electing love for them. To those whom He had determined to reprobate God withheld the merits of Christ by union with Him, instead passing them over in their unloved state. Here we see in history the calling out of God’s people through regeneration, whereby they are delivered from the curse of sin and raised unto life, which they now live for God until He shall bring history to its end.

Given that God did decree to apply the benefits of Christ to the elect, and to deny them unto the reprobate, it was necessary to determine how it would come about that Christ’s benefits would be applied to the elect. This salvation was to be according to the Law, which God decreed should be that standard according to which all men should be subject, and according to which they would be reconciled to God through the incarnation, obedient life, substitutionary death, and life-giving resurrection of the God-man Jesus Christ. The apparatus of God’s salvation is seen in history in the life and work of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the elect, prophesied from the earliest ages and revealed at the appointed time.

Given that God did decree to bring about the salvation of the elect through the incarnation and work of the Son in history, it was necessary for Him to determine how it would be that men should come under the penalty of wrath and the need for redemption. Therefore God decreed that all men should fall under the penalty of lawbreaking in their federal representative, Adam. By this Fall the whole of Creation would be separated from the love of God and be subject to the effects of God’s wrath, including the curse upon the earth, and upon the subsequent generations of men propagated by natural generation. The means of bringing all men under the need of redemption was accomplished in history in the disobedience of Adam in the Garden of Eden, wherein he did take the forbidden fruit to the dishonor of God’s commandment to him.

Given that God did decree to bring about the Fall of men in order that the means of salvation in Christ might be provided, and the merits of Christ be applied to those whom God had chosen to elect in Him for His own glory, God did decree to create the world and all that is it in, including the federal head Adam in whom all humanity consists under the law and according to natural generation. The Creation of the world was the first act of history, and the last intention of God necessary to bring about His utmost glory.

The consistency of logical progression of God’s thought is the perfect reverse reflection of their temporal accomplishment. Understanding the character of God’s thought as such, we are called to consider our own lives and every event in them as determined by the ends for which God is doing all things–His own glory, and the brining to maturation all those elect who are the image of Christ, Who is the image of God, who has manifest His glory in just this way, and no other.

When, therefore, there is evil, let us praise the name of the Lord and work according to His express commands. When, therefore, there is good, let us praise the name of the Lord and work according to His express commands. When, therefore, there is doubt concerning what is our destiny upon this earth, let us praise the name of the Lord and look into His perfect Law and find all that we are in Christ, and all that we shall do in His name and by His power for the restoration of all things to the great glory of our God, Father, Savior, King.

End of part 1

I’m sure a few of you read the previous post, blanched at its abstract character, and pulled away thinking, “but what has such considerations of ‘logical’ order have to do with how I live in the world?”

A perfectly valid question. Consider the fact that if you are one of God’s elect, there is no moment in the history of your life, beginning to end, when God has not considered you in light of His loving purposes. That means that every circumstance, every sin, every success or failure: every single aspect of your existence is characterized by the love of God. Each sin, for example, brings not condemnation, but the opportunity for greater illumination and subsequent obedience. “Are we not then to lament our sins?” May it never be! That all things work to our good does not entail that all things we experience are praiseworthy! The breaking of God’s law is indeed a lamentable offense, yet because the elect have been accepted in Christ from eternity, his standing before God is as a son, and not as an enemy. What father would give a snake when the son asked for an egg? God conditions us by degrees into His very likeness, the express image of God that is Christ Jesus. Thus, every destination has its journey, and every step of that journey is characterized by the direction determined by that destination. God is the governor, guide, and goad–how could we, his sons and daughters, come out otherwise than He desires, if we are indeed His children?

I often hear Christians complaining of how great is their sin, how manifestly difficult it is for them to master, and how wonderful it will be when we are free from sin in heaven. While all of these considerations are true in one sense, they are profoundly misleading in another. Has not our sin been placed upon an even greater Savior? Has not our flesh been crucified, and our life that we now live, lived in the power of God Himself, the Holy Spirit? Has not the power of sin and death been buried with Christ in His death, in order that we may walk unencumbered by the sins that so easily beset us? We children of God, every one of us, struggle in our sin to the extent that we fail to understand our identity–we are not our own individual self, but we are the complex identity of Christ-in-us-and-we-in-Him. The commandments to be of one mind so often given in relation to our brothers and sisters in Christ is because we are first of all made of one mind with Christ Himself. We have the mind of Christ – 1 Cor. 2:16.

A further corollary consideration to our being identified completely with Christ is that we must know what it means to be Christ upon the earth. If Christ is our Head, and we His Body, then the sense of the analogy would indicate that the Head will use the Body to accomplish His will in the earth. But what standard has been given, or what orders been issued, that we may know not only who we are, but what we are to be about? Jesus Christ came to be about the will of His Father, and while we are not privy to the same tasks in every respect (which of us would profess to propitiate the wrath of God for the elect!?!?), we nonetheless are given in Christ a model of our true humanity. Christ fulfilled the Law by following the Law in every respect. Love God. Love your neighbor. Two very simple commands within which are contained the limitless directives for Christians in every age and in every circumstance. Yet there are those who claim that the Bible does not speak to every consideration. God has indeed been silent on a great many truths, but those are expressly concerning Himself and His particular reasons for what He does. What we must choose in each choice is profoundly determined by Scripture in every aspect. Even legitimate matters of Christian liberty are characterized by the requirements of the first word: they must be Christian; they must glorify God as Christ glorified God in every way.

But further, who can be so foolish as to think that the Eternal God of Heaven would leave us groping for direction in those affairs that bear the most direct impact upon what we shall learn and how we shall live!? I am speaking of our decisions about how to educate our children. I am speaking about our decisions about how to use our money. I am speaking about our decisions about how best to use our “free time.” The modern Church has so circumscribed the Law of God, if it has not thrown it out entire, that it cannot be said to be about much of anything concerning the Kingdom of God Almighty. We not only fail in knowing who we are, but in knowing how who we are impacts how we live, and not by some generalized platitudinous clichés tossed from our pulpits and in our parishes (where they still exist!). What use is the “power” of the “Gospel” when we know not what or how such “power” is to be used or what “good news” is to be spoken? What does it mean to “press the Kingdom” into our lives, really? How exactly is it that “seeing and savoring the beauty of Christ,” works itself out, day to day?

The most basic implication is that we must know God’s Law, Christ’s Law, and find out how to apply it where we are now. For example, it is not enough that one should avoid lying to one’s neighbor in order to fulfill the commandment against bearing false witness. One must also do all in one’s power to protect the good name of one’s neighbor. Do you gossip? Do you criticize on the basis of preference rather than principle? Do you not only wish no ill, but also wish the best for those around you? And no, the best doesn’t always entail avoiding confrontation and being polite, for the best is to be free from sin and to honor God. If you see a brother sinning, we are to point him to God’s Word for encouragement to repent, even as we must be prepared, with soft hearts, to accept the rebuke of a brother when confronted upon our sin – Hebrews 3:12-13.

But you will fail if you forsake the fact that your righteousness is not accomplished by your obedience to the Law, but rather, your obedience to the Law is accomplished because Christ’s righteousness has been applied to your account! The end of the thing determines its beginning. You obey because you have been bought, you were not bought because you obey. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, “Dogs bark because they are dogs, not because they bark.” It is in the nature of the Christian to grow in obedience, because his life is Christ’s life within, living out God’s particular purpose for that individual life in the grand drama of His glory. If you aren’t doing Christianity well, go think about what it means to be in Christ. Perhaps God will illuminate your mind to the knowledge of His Son, and thereby call you forth as son or daughter of the living God.